State workers want their cut of tax hike

State labor groups are insisting that Gov. Jerry Brown return their robust support of his successful tax-hike initiative in November by rewarding them with pay increases.

Proposition 30, which boosted sales and incomes taxes, was sold to voters as a remedy for ailing schools, but state employee unions made it clear at a rally Wednesday that they expect to share in the $6 billion bounty.

Yvonne R. Walker, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 1000, said the state’s largest employee union was instrumental in helping pass the governor’s measure.

More than 1,800 SEIU members and staff participated in nearly 9,400 phone banks and precinct walks in advance of the election.

Yes
17% (284)

No
83% (1342)

1626 total votes.

Members said they made more than 390,000 calls, knocked on thousands of doors and poured millions into campaign coffers to pass Proposition 30 and oppose Proposition 32, which would have limited union political spending.

“We passed revenues that for the first time — for the first time — we are not facing a budget deficit,” Walker said. “We put money in the state budget. We knocked on doors. We made phone calls. We accosted strangers in the street.”

The unions also helped Democrats achieve two-thirds supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature, Walker said.

“But we elected them and let them know, no longer will we be political pawns to what goes on in that building. We are real people with real lives and we don’t ask — because our days of asking are over — we demand to be treated with dignity and respect,” she said. “And either they will give us a fair contract or we are going to jam 90,000 state workers straight in a place where they don’t want us.”

Pat McConahay, a spokesman for Brown’s personnel department, said the state does not comment on contract negotiations. However, Brown recently told reporters he would hold the line on spending, and that he deliberately excluded employee cost increases from his latest budget proposal.

“That’s one of the things about bargaining,” Brown said. “You put a number in and (unions) know where you’re going. Suffice it to say, we’re aiming low.”

On Wednesday, union officials said the state has rejected several proposals that included across-the-board pay increases.

SEIU Local 1000, which represents more than 95,000 state workers, says the state’s position has been that any new contract be “cost neutral,” meaning any raise must be counteracted by cuts to other benefits.

Walker pledged that bargaining groups will dig in their heels for a potentially bruising battle. She said members don’t live cost-neutral lives and won’t end contract talks without more money.

Her speech outside the Capitol was interrupted with chants of “We’re all in!” from a throng of union members. Other chants: “Pay attention; don’t touch our pensions!” and “Make him pay!”

The governor negotiates contracts with state labor groups, which then must be ratified by the Legislature.

Proposition 30 increased the sales tax a quarter-cent on the dollar for four years and hiked income taxes on a sliding scale for seven years on those making more than $250,000 a year. Assemblyman Brian Jones, R-Santee, said the measure was not intended to, or sold on, higher pay for state workers.